Weekly Oricon Rankings (Ending 04-20)

The top single for the past week was Morning Musume’s “Toki wo Koe, Sora wo Koe/Password is 0” (時空を超え 宇宙を超え／Password is 0) , which saw 119,409 copies sold. I’d normally think 時空 would be read jikuu (space-time) and 宇宙uchuu (universe), but Wikipedia says different. Anyway, this is a significant drop from the results on the group’s previous two singles – both of which scored in the 140k range in their first week.

SMAP’s “Yes we are/Koko kara” took #4, selling an additional 13,417 copies to bring its two-week total to 152,385. That’s a solid second week for the group after a lackluster first week.

At #7, “Kizuitara Kataomoi” from Nogizaka46 sold 12,734 in its third week and now boasts a total of 495,239 copies sold. It will probably pass 500k next week.

Taking #8 in its second week, Sekai no Owari’s “Honoo to Mori no Carnival” saw a very strong 11,575 copies sold and its total is now 78,044.

“Mirai to wa?” from SKE48 was at #11, selling 8,354 for a five-week total of 473, 937.

There were a lot of new releases populating the middle section of the top 30.

Going all the way to #24, we find HKT48’s “Sakura, Minna de Tabeta” at a six-week total of 300,450.

At #29 was “Takane no Ringo” from NMB48, which now has 420,835 copies sold after four weeks.

The situation with the new releases flooding the list forced Fukuda Kouhei-san’s “Nanbu Semishigure” down to #30, now with a seventy-eight week total of 183,209. If it finally gets pushed out of the top 30 for good, Fukuda-san doesn’t have to worry – his newer single is gaining traction.

On the album side, Mizuki Nana-san took the top spot as her “Supernal Liberty” sold 76,144 copies.

Mizuki-san was the only person who could keep Fukuyama Masaharu-san from taking #1 three weeks in a row. He had to settle for second place, selling an additional 24,161 copies of “HUMAN” to bring its three-week total to 280,759.

The soundtrack to the Disney movie Frozen continues to do well, taking #3 in its tenth week by selling an impressive 17,355 copies. Its new total is 129,946.

May J. is also doing well. Her “Heartful Song Covers” took #4 in its fourth week with 13,633 copies sold, boosting its total to 77,570.

Holding on to #6, Kis-My-Ft2’s “Hit! Hit! Hit!” tacked on 6,290 to get a four-week total of 260,488.

Finally, “Midnight Memories” from One Direction managed to pop back in to the top 10 in its twenty-first week. It took #9 by selling 5151, but unfortunately I lose track of its total.